Milwaukee-born, Nebraska-based jazz singer Jackie Allen continues a sky-kissing career arc. Though still possessing far more talent than renown, her new album tops her previous, which I considered her best. Dawn is more personal and original, yet also quite accessible. There’s a nifty yin-yang between poetic art-song-like creations often with enchanting world music settings, and more down-home groove songs, all created by her spouse, bassist-composer, Hans Sturm. The title song brilliantly evokes the dangers of romance: “You’re the light on the cliff over walls of mist/you’re the rocks below I can’t resist.”
Allen’s alluring voice, possessing a natural vibrato, glimmers like gulps from the heart. She conveys lyrics and sentiments with effortless aplomb and exquisite timing. On “Moon on the Rising” her voice, in dramatic effect, speeds up the image to evoke the rising moon in a manner of seconds. On “Steal the Night,” her limpid phrasing sounds as if a circling well of water drifting into a slow current just out of reach of the departing lover, who may never return.
Try Allen out and you’ll fall hard. Return to her and you’ll know why you always do.
